Through the Years
by tentsubasa
Summary: When Armin was 25, he released Annie from her crystal. Follow Armin and Annie's 10-year journey as they navigate the waters of enmity, camaraderie, friendship, and love together through 10 vignettes.
1. When He was 25

**This was originally going to be a one-shot, but it's been sitting on my computer since back when I was writing "Finding the Words," so I thought I'd try posting it as a multi-chapter story to help get some ideas bouncing around for it. I don't really know what's going on in the manga right now, but I'm going to say it's probably not canon-compliant at this point if only because with the way people get killed off in** _ **Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan**_ **, someone that I've got alive here has probably died in the meantime.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own** _ **Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan**_ **or any affiliates.**

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When he was twenty-five, he released her from the crystal.

It had taken years and years of research, but they'd finally managed to figure out how to break Annie's crystal with the help of samples taken from areas where the walls had cracked and broken off. It seemed that certain light frequencies caused the crystal to, for lack of a better word, melt. It wasn't enough to make the stuff run like water, but it would become viscous enough to slowly slough off if they scraped at it.

They'd spent well over a year carefully melting different parts of the crystal and scraping it down around Annie's body as if she was a precious artifact of an ancient civilization, and today, they'd finally break through to skin. Not a lot of skin, mind you, they were planning to focus on just releasing one of her hands to prevent potential damage to more vital regions of the body, but since there was a risk that the exposure would wake her up, people armed with muskets and titan-slaying blades were packed into the room.

Armin set his jaw and turned on the machine. While it was admittedly somewhat suicidal to be the closest one to Annie should she wake up considering the events that had transpired immediately before her self-inflicted entombment, he had no intention of letting anyone else have her first. He was an adult; he'd take responsibility for his actions and finish what he'd started. Besides, he cast his eyes backward for a moment to survey the grim faces of some of the more distinguished attendees, he had no desire for her first breath to be her last.

Everyone tensed, ready to spring into action, when he laboriously wiped off a glop of goo over the back of her hand and made skin-on-skin contact.

But no response.

Armin squashed his disappointment and continued working on freeing the rest of her hand. With a few weeks of careful work, they'd get the rest of her out. Maybe then, she'd wake up. By the time her hand had been fully exposed, the air in the room had relaxed. Some people, mostly newer recruits, had already left, deciding that there was no threat and that the Female Titan had died within her prison. Armin was ready to pass the machine to someone on the excavation team when he noticed an almost invisible cloud of condensation over her nose and mouth.

She was breathing.

Changing his angle, he immediately set to work on melting that area over her face, ignoring the panicked squawk of the head of the excavation team. His eyes sharpened as the space between her and the air dwindled to a thin glistening almost transparent layer. His fingers made contact first with the point of her nose, then the curve of her lips. And as she took her first breath of air, her crystalline encasement shimmered and flowed like it had during its creation and slid off her body, pitching her forward into his arms. He tensed when he heard the guns cock and the blades unsheathe, but soon forgot about them when the frail girl in his arms slowly fluttered open her eyes, and all he could think of was how relieved he was that she was _alive_.

"Who…?" Her eyes were hazy and unfocused as they looked up to him. Eventually, blue met blue. "Ar…min…?" Her voice sounded rusty and gravely from disuse.

"That's right, Annie, it's me." He heard the shuffling of feet as people surrounded them on all sides.

"Why…are—?" her voice cut off as he stuffed a gag in her mouth; the clink of her ring bouncing off the floor and a click of handcuffs behind her back shortly followed. He held her like a vice as she struggled weakly against him, making sure she wouldn't be able to work the gag out of her mouth.

"Out of the way," a rough voice growled from behind him.

"So you can kill her? No, thanks," he replied levelly. He noticed Annie had stopped struggling. It seemed she was figuring out what was going on. "She's more valuable to humanity alive than dead." He ignored her stiffening. "At best, she could fight for us." Armin pulled her further into his protective embrace when she attempted to extricate herself again, clamping down even harder to make sure neither of her legs could wiggle free. "And at worst, we can torture information out of her and use her for experiments." His tongue thankfully slid back into his mouth just in time to avoid getting bitten in half by her headbutt to his chin.

"Everyone, stand down," an authoritative female voice ordered.

Armin could hear grumbling and a particularly fearsome snarl from behind him, but the weapons were lowered and blades were sheathed.

"You can let go, Armin." The bespectacled commander walked in front of him. "I don't have any intention of letting her die." An ominous light glinted in her eyes. "She's not getting off that easily."

Armin looked back in warning to the glaring men behind him before nodding and allowing two other soldiers to pull Annie away.

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 **And...that's chapter 1. Since this was originally supposed to be a one-shot, chapters will not be particularly long. I'm aiming for this story to cover a 10-year span, so 10 chapters total: 1 per year. Sorry for posting this instead of an update on some of my other stories!**


	2. When He was 26

**Luckily or unluckily for you, I'm planning to upload a fair number of chapters right now just so I can get the story rolling. I feel like it's a little too slow to do in small chunks all the time; thus why it was originally supposed to be a one-shot. *sigh***

* * *

When he was twenty-six, he talked to her.

After months of torturing her, experimenting on her, and interrogating her, the Military Police had just about run out of patience. If the Survey Corps couldn't get something out of Annie soon, they'd lobby to have her transferred into the custody of the Military Police for execution, and considering how uncooperative she'd been, Commander-in-Chief Zackley just might allow it—which was why he was here. Armin sighed and squared his shoulders before starting down the long staircase that led to the dark underground prison room.

He supposed on some level he recognized why his superiors wanted him to try his hand at convincing Annie to let go of her secrets, but he didn't understand precisely why they thought his bond with her as trainees was applicable considering that that had been more than _ten years ago_.

The squad leader flicked back his long-ish ponytail with a sigh—yet another reminder of how different he was from the boy Annie knew. In addition to a different hairstyle, he was taller, more muscular, his face more angular, his frame sturdier, his voice deeper—the list of disparities between his fifteen-year-old self and the present day went on and on. With the exception of them having shared memories and experiences, he really didn't see any way for Annie to relate to the present-day Armin Arlert. His eyes sharpened when they caught sight of the outer door to her holding chamber. Those things being said, he wasn't about to just let her up and die on his watch without trying to do something about it.

Annie didn't even turn to look at him when he walked in. She just lay lifelessly on her cot, staring at the wall.

"Annie."

She stirred enough to look over her shoulder and after a long moment, sat up and met his gaze with her own bored one. "You here to make me spill all my secrets, too?"

"That is the final objective, yes, but I don't have any ideas about how to go about it, so I thought maybe we could just talk for now."

She snorted derisively, but "just talk" was exactly what they did. Hour after hour, day after day, for a little over a week, they talked. In general, the conversations were halting, mostly one-sided (with the exception of some well-placed barbs and biting comments), and unbelievably awkward, but they were conversations nonetheless. It was actually weirdly enjoyable to reacquaint himself with Annie in this way, and as the time ticked by, talking with Annie felt less and less like a chore and more and more like it had back when they were in training (provided that one was supposed to interrogate the other at some point during said training).

But this was the last day he could afford to dedicate to spending like this, so one way or another something was going to have to give. "Why did you come with me back then? You knew it was a trap."

"Your objective was the same as mine: to keep the Coordinate alive. Why wouldn't I cooperate?" Her eyes got an ironic slant as she threw his own words back at him. "I thought pretending to go along with your plan rather than outright opposition would prevent suspicion and buy my escape more time."

A short puff of air escaped from his nose as he suppressed a chuckle. Touché. Entombing herself hadn't dulled her wit any.

"Don't tell me you were hoping it was because I wanted you to consider me a good person for as long as possible."

His smile dropped. "That's ridiculous."

She made a non-committal sound. "It's not entirely untrue…. I went with you because you said your plan would ensure Eren's survival, but I played along for as long as I did because I wanted to see what you were up to." Her smile was mocking. "You didn't disappoint. How like you to try and convince me to defect. You should've just jumped me after luring me into that alley. I didn't put on that ring until after talking to you."

"I noticed that, but I never imagined it would have a hidden blade." His smile was bitter and self-deprecating. "You're right, though. So many lives could've been spared if I'd been willing to trust the evidence. You wouldn't have been able to escape for ten years, and maybe we'd be further along in the war against the titans than we are now, preventing even more unnecessary loss of life. I was naïve and stupid then. I couldn't throw away my humanity in order to capture you, and many paid the price." His voiced deadened in self-loathing. "I just wanted so badly for it not to be true. For three years, we trained, studied, ate, and fought together. We survived Trost together, graduated together. Despite the evidence, I couldn't believe that you were my enemy, that you were a titan." He looked into her hooded eyes with a serious gaze of his own. "I believed in you then even knowing you would confirm my suspicions. And…I still believe in you now. I know you have reasons for why you did what you did; you wouldn't just kill those people without what you consider to be a good reason. Good reason or not, it doesn't excuse what you did, but if you cooperate with us now, you can atone and give meaning to the deaths of those who died to capture you. I know you didn't want to kill them, so prove you're not the monster so many believe you to be. Fight for humanity. Help us."

They fell silent. As the stillness crept on, Armin watched her quietly. She didn't show any signs of softening. He sighed, regret floating on the sound. Apparently she still chose death. He should have expected as much; what could he do in a week that countless others had been unable to accomplish in over a year? His eyes went pensive. If this was the last time he'd ever see her, was there anything else he wanted to say? Tears rose when he realized there was. "I never thanked you, did I?"

Her face didn't move, but he could almost see her puckering her eyebrows on the inside in confusion.

He chuckled softly and leaned back, his eyes faraway. "Back before we knew the Rogue Titan was Eren, or even about the existence of shifters, you were the one who said it was possible we could turn that titan into an ally and use its strength to fight back. You were the one who suggested that titans could be the saviors of humanity as opposed to its bane. When Eren asked me to argue for using him to aid humanity in its war against the titans, your words helped me believe that there were normal people who'd look past their terror and the risk of Eren's titan nature and see the strategic value of having a titan fight for our side. Eren and Mikasa gave me the confidence to argue for our lives, but you gave me hope that my words wouldn't fall on deaf ears." His smile was genuine and filled with overwhelming gratitude. "Because of you, I was able to save my best friends. So, thank you, Annie. Thank you so much."

She blinked slowly at him, obviously caught off-guard.

He laughed a little, a harsh, mirthless sound. "Considering that you worked to break through that wall in Trost, you probably aren't very happy to hear it now, but thank you nonetheless." His voice was ironic. "Back then, I was so impressed with you. Despite having just faced the terror of being eaten by titans not minutes before, you were levelheaded enough to think of something as outrageous as a titan being an ally. _Using_ the titan while it was convenient for our immediate purposes, that I could fathom, but thinking of it as a being we could work and communicate with and thus worthy of saving? It wasn't something I'd think of in a million lifetimes, so I was completely in awe of you."

"Considering you were the best in in strategy and tactics out of all the trainee classes in the history of the military academy, that's quite a compliment." At some point, she'd looked away from him, hiding her face behind her fall of hair.

"You were in the top four," he replied, "and number three in the classroom. If you'd been better at working with other people, you would've easily beaten Reiner and Bertolt, possibly been Mikasa's equal."

"You're awfully free with compliments today. I'm guessing that means I won't have to see your face anymore?"

"You'd be correct."

"I expected at least another week."

He responded brusquely to her mocking tone. "Sorry, but I don't have that kind of time."

"Of course," she shifted her feet onto the cot, "you're part of the leadership structure now."

He sighed and stood; he felt sad and angry at the same time. But what more could he do? He'd done his best and said what he'd wanted to. There wasn't anything more to be done. "Good bye, Annie." He strode toward the door. Just as he was about to close it behind him, she spoke.

"Armin…."

He paused and looked back. She was lying flat on the cot, her face turned away from him.

There was a long silence before her voice resumed, the sound quiet and fragile around the edges. "I know it doesn't mean anything…but…thank you for believing in me…and all the rest."

He stood watching her for a short while before shaking his head with a wry smile and locking the cell door. A week later, Annie finally agreed to tell them what she knew and fight for humanity.


	3. When He was 27

When he was twenty-seven, she moved out of the dungeon.

It was an event that'd been a little over a year in the making. After the two-week preliminary interrogation, life had very slowly improved, which was understandable if a tad frustrating. First, they stopped mixing drugs into her food. She'd never directly asked, but considering that the food they gave her suddenly did more than simply keep her barely alive, it didn't take a genius to figure out. She'd have hated them if she didn't recognize the same suspicion and paranoia within herself.

Then, they'd taken off her chains so she could move freely around her cell and get some exercise. Once she'd regained some amount of muscle mass and steady mobility, they'd started experiments on her. They weren't severe enough to significantly set back her physical condition now that her regenerative abilities were restored, but apparently they weren't going to just wait for her to get completely better before putting her under the scalpel. While she hated being cut up like a lab rat, she always cooperated to the best of her ability. If she didn't, they wouldn't let her outside afterward.

She hated those outside excursions just as much as she loved them. Since she was often cut up when they'd take her out to the walled courtyard, she could never do more than sit in a chair and feel the breeze ruffling through her hair, or lay in the grass and bask in the warm, dappled sunshine, but it was far more freedom than she'd had in twelve years, so she took it for all it was worth. On days they'd cut her up to ribbons, she'd lay in the sun watching the endless blue sky receive the steam from her wounds and silently curse the walls of the courtyard and the researchers who'd made her so helpless she couldn't even move freely in the limited space they'd given her. They were bribing and blackmailing her with sunlight and fresh air as if they were favored toys or pieces of candy, and it humiliated and angered her. But she'd made her choice and would stick by it, so she just closed her eyes and pretended that she was lazing around in one of her favorite haunts during training. She'd doze lightly to the whisper of the wind in her ear and dream of a less complicated time.

As the experiments began to move slowly out of the repeated dissection phase, they started asking more questions again, quizzing her for information. Most of the questions were biological, but some were anthropological. They didn't trust her to advise them directly based on their reconnaissance, so they'd gather information obliquely to try and puzzle out the enemy's way of thinking. Her jaunts in the sun lengthened, and the amount she'd be injured before being admitted outside lessened as people began to believe she wouldn't try to escape or cause trouble. She walked through the grass, climbed trees, dipped her feet in the small pond, and worked around her shackles to perform limited calisthenics. Paperwork was filed; votes were cast. And now, she was standing in a small room with the man who'd been connected in one way or another to every step of her rehabilitation thus far.

Annie rubbed her wrists a bit after Armin undid the shackles and looked around the sparsely furnished room. It wasn't much. A neatly made twin bed sporting a thin pillow, crisp white sheets, and a dark comforter was situated in one corner of the room; the ends of the bedposts were rounded and sanded smooth. Beside it stood a small circular table with a tiny unlit candle for light resting on top of a smooth metal stand. On the opposite wall, there was a small, oval table with a towel, metal washbasin, and dull pitcher atop it and three narrow shelves for clothes. Every piece of furniture was bolted firmly to the floor.

She noted with a quiet huff that there wasn't a single sharp edge in the room or a way to create one judging from the lack of a mirror and porcelain tools. Not that she was planning to off herself or use a sharp edge to shift, but it was yet another reminder—like the one large window on the sole stone wall at the head of the bed—that she was first and foremost a prisoner. The window was higher than she could reach even by standing on one of the tables, and horizontal bars spanned its width. As far as she could tell at first glance, she could open and close the shutter over it by pulling on a small string and wrapping it around a knob in the wall. She hated the bars, but quite liked the window otherwise, though it would've been nice if it afforded her a view in addition to light and fresh air.

The space wasn't luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but it was far superior to the holding cell she'd been in underground for the last two and a half years. She could actually let in fresh air and sunshine every day and the room was clean and tidy. Since she wasn't much for frills, the minimalist décor suited her just fine. The only things she could wish for were a mirror and a desk. Maybe a small bookshelf, though the nightstand had enough space to comfortably hold a small stack of books, so it wasn't necessary. After being in that dungeon for so long, the idea of being above ground every day without being shackled and sleeping in a real bed with a real pillow and sheets was almost unreal. Everything considered, she was feeling pretty fortunate.

There was only one thing she absolutely detested about the room: its doors. The room had two doors: one to Mikasa's room and one to Lance Corporal Levi's. Whenever she had to come in or out of the room, she had to go through one of theirs. She understood the precaution. In the event that she shifted or became violent, they were best suited to keep her under control. They were also theoretically supposed to be there to protect her from anyone who'd want to harm her, though quite frankly, they were at or near the top of the list of people who'd be more than happy to see her dead, so she wasn't sure how much use they'd be in that particular capacity. Then again, maybe that was the point. If she never felt safe enough to quite let down her guard, she'd be less likely to rebel. It would also make it easier for one or the other of them to accompany her wherever she went.

"Well, what do you think?" Armin's voice finally broke through her thoughts.

"It's nice." She sat on the bed to test it out. A mattress, a real honest-to-goodness mattress—she squashed the urge to throw herself on it and revel in its softness.

"There's a well out front for water and the bath house isn't far."

She nodded absently, fingering the sheets, secretly relishing how smooth they were compared to the scratchy blankets she'd had in her cell. She looked up when he stopped in front of her and mutely took the stack of clothes he'd offered.

"I think there should be enough clothing there to get you started. You'll get issued some uniforms next week."

She suppressed an eye roll when she realized that aside from the requisite undergarments and some socks, the stack was composed of three white hooded sweatshirts and some pants that would be easy to move in. While it was true she wore hoodies often, did he really think they were all she wore? He hadn't even provided an undershirt for her to slide beneath them.

"Is there anything else you need?"

"Hairbands and something to wear under the hooded sweatshirts," she responded swiftly.

"Alright. Anything else?"

She shook her head. By this time, she'd moved over to the table with the washbasin to see if she could make out her reflection by pouring in some water. She wondered idly what she looked like now—probably a fright. While she'd never considered herself ugly, her prominent nose prevented her from being considered anything but handsome, certainly not exotically or classically beautiful like Mikasa or Krista. Not that she really cared, but considering how long it had been since she'd last seen her face, she was mildly curious.

She stilled when he spoke, her fingers reaching for the pitcher as the light of day began to fade. "I'm hoping you can get a mirror in a month or two. Some of the researchers thought it would be best to observe you for suicidal tendencies before giving you access to glass."

"You've just nullified their study, you know."

He shrugged. "Only because it's meaningless. You're not going to kill yourself."

"You know this." Her tone and expression were studiously impassive.

"You chose life back in that cell. You're not going to throw it away now that the quality has improved." He glanced over at the door to Mikasa's room. "I'm not sure how long you'll have to stay in this particular room, though. It'll take awhile for you to gain everyone's trust, but I'm sure with time, you'll be able to have a normal room."

She ran her fingers thoughtfully over the smooth handle of the pitcher. She doubted people would be so forgiving. The most she expected was that people would maybe come to resent her existence less. At the very least, her two prison guards certainly wouldn't ever forgive her; of that, she was certain.

A soft thump roused her from her thoughts, and she raised an eyebrow when she saw that Armin had put a small stack of papers and oddly-shaped packages on the other end of the table. He smiled gently at her and motioned to the pile. "These are for you. I'll leave now so you can look at them."

She nodded mutely and watched him head to Mikasa's door. He paused once he opened it and turned with a smile. It was the smile he'd wear when he looked at a friend. Despite the strangeness of seeing it on his older face, her heart tightened a little; it was an expression she hadn't seen since their cadet days. "Have a good evening, Annie. See you at breakfast." Then he was gone.

She picked up one of the bulkier objects and warily undid the wrapping. A gasp escaped as the most exquisite trinket box appeared. Its surface was polished silver studded with luminous blue stones, the inside divided into a few small, pale blue silk-lined compartments.

Late into the night, she slowly went through the pile of gifts and letters from the former members of the 104th, the candle burning low. A trinket box from Krista, a smooth wooden bowl of Sasha's favorite assorted snacks, an interesting-looking rock from Eren, an amusing flip comic of Annie beating Eren and Reiner in hand-to-hand combat from Jean, a beautifully whittled flute from Connie that smelled of the forest, a pack of hairbands and a roll of training tape from Mikasa, and a book of inspirational poems and short stories from Armin. Silent tears coursed down her face as she read their words of anger, pain, betrayal, sorrow, hatred, confusion, acceptance, hope, and forgiveness. They now offered their hands to her to take up the mantle together as comrades-in-arms and friends.

As the candle sputtered out, Annie buried her face in her knees, surrounded by the tangible bonds of the friendship and love she never thought would truly be hers. Maybe redemption _was_ possible for even someone like her.

* * *

 **I'm planning to do 5 chapters from Armin's point of view and 5 from Annie's. All of the chapters will start the same: "When he was [some age]," followed by a masculine or feminine pronoun. If the pronoun is masculine, the chapter will be from Armin's point of view, if feminine, Annie's.**


	4. When He was 28

When he was twenty-eight, she punched him.

He had a girlfriend. A _girlfriend_. She was livid. Which was stupid. Which made her even angrier.

Annie silently ran laps around the deserted track, giving off an aura that warned everyone within a square kilometer not to even think about heading in the general direction of her momentary sanctuary. Her mouth turned down ever so slightly in a scowl as the indignation boiled inside. It wasn't that she was jealous. I mean of course she was jealous; she liked him and he had a girlfriend, jealousy was expected. But what made her burn wasn't the jealousy, it was the hurt.

He had every right in the world to have a girlfriend. He didn't like her that way. He didn't know that she liked him, that she _had_ liked him ever since they were cadets. She knew the reason fifteen-year-old Armin hadn't ratted her out about Marco's gear was because he'd naïvely wanted to believe in the good in people and not because of any hidden feelings or something on his part. Not to mention that she had put herself on ice for ten freaking years. But despite knowing all this, when she'd happened to see him kiss that shop girl in front of the bookstore where she worked, before the sullen disappointment and flash of jealousy had been a stab of hurt. And that instantaneous, poignant jab of hurt meant that unbeknownst to her, somewhere, there was a part of her that had been stupidly romantic and needy enough to hope that he'd wait for her. Wait for her for absolutely no reason at all. Her eyes burned a bit as she forced them to stay fixed on the track. Having to admit that, even only to herself, was unspeakably humiliating.

Her years undercover and the lessons from her father taught her the importance of knowing yourself. To recognize every weakness and strength within your body and use them to best effect was the heart of control. The principal extended to emotions as well. Over her time undercover, she'd drawn her naturally reclusive and reticent nature around her like a wall. Her father had made her tough as nails and she'd used it as a shield of subtle (or not-so-subtle) intimidation. When an occasion called for kindness, she used her wits to find oblique ways to show it and avoid attention. When she'd fallen in love, she'd kept it quiet, expressing her admiration in easily forgotten off-hand comments and silent support and understanding. It galled her to know in her own private way, she'd been like those silly, giggly girls that she'd simultaneously scorned and envied back in cadet days.

Hours later, she lay sprawled out on the grass as the sun went down, no longer able to continue punishing her body. Salt water ran down her face and the area around her heart ached and burned. No matter how long or how fast she ran, she couldn't escape it: despite her cautious hopes in what he'd said and done thirteen years ago and now, he had never seen her.

Annie remained silent while Armin outlined the hand-to-hand combat training exercise to the new recruits a couple days later, keeping her eyes firmly fixed directly in front of her. It was only after she'd taken her usual fighting stance that she saw her out of the corner of her eye: the shop girl.

The next few moments were hazy on her end. But from the pain in her fists and the way Armin was staring at her from the ground, she'd apparently punched him. From the way he was holding his middle, probably first in the stomach and then, if the amount of blood was anything to go by, in the face. She may have possibly broken his nose. Squashing the part of her that wanted to apologize, she turned to the recruits and stated flatly, "Try different fighting styles once in a while. You may find something other than your usual is better for quickly dispatching a particular opponent," before giving the order for them to break up and practice. As she walked around pretending to watch what they came up with, she saw Shop Girl run over to her boyfriend out of the corner of her eye. Annie slid her eyes away when she saw that Armin was ignoring Shop Girl in favor of watching Annie with that look he got when he was trying to puzzle out something indecipherable. She had a feeling they'd be talking later. Might as well use the time to think about how to go about her defense.

After hand-to-hand training was over, he immediately stalked over. "What was that?"

She gave him a sidelong look. "Teaching."

"By not covering the technique we planned to demonstrate today and practically breaking my nose?!"

She shrugged. "Must not hurt that much if you haven't gone to get it taken care of. Maybe you should go do that."

"Don't change the subject." His voice softened a little bit. "What's bothering you?"

"Why does something have to be wrong?" she asked with a strategic lacing of boredom. "Maybe I just didn't feel like laying you out on your back today."

"I highly doubt that. Making taller people taste dirt is one of your favorite forms of recreation."

She gave a small, disinterested shrug. "Think what you want, but it's the truth." And she realized with a poignant stab to her chest, it was. She hadn't wanted to use her usual fighting style with Shop Girl standing there watching.

"Why?"

She gave him an appraising look. He looked bewildered and completely adorable doing it. Her heart tightened a little again. Did he just have an ear for when someone was telling the truth, or was he just that good at reading her specifically? She wasn't sure she wanted to know. Pursing her lips slightly, she turned to him and placed a hand on her cocked hip. "Don't you think it's kind of rude to invite your girlfriend over to watch another girl straddle and press herself up against you?" His mouth dropped like a stone. Her lips twitched in amusement before she sighed and looked away. "I suppose since you and everyone else on this base don't consider me to be a female, I understand why you didn't think it a problem, but—"

"I do," he interrupted with an awkward look on his face. "Consider you a female, I mean," he mumbled. Her flat expression told him just how much she believed him. He looked embarrassed. "Not in a weird way or anything like that." She wouldn't mind if it _was_ in the weird way he denied, but it wasn't like he needed to know that. Armin continued, "I just didn't think about how your fighting style could look to other people. It's the best way for you to use your small build to subdue an opponent, so it didn't occur to me that your actions could be interpreted as non…martial…." He peeked over at her and gave her that tentatively sweet smile she'd pretended in years past wasn't just what she wanted when she needed a pick-me-up. "Thank you, Annie." He touched his nose gingerly with a rueful expression. "I guess I deserved this."

She shrugged.

They were silent for a little longer before he winced. "I'd better get cleaned up," he indicated his blood-caked face.

"I'll go with you." Her face shifted almost imperceptibly in surprise at the words that had flown out of her mouth. She recovered quickly though. "Try to fix what I damaged." She paused and mumbled, "If your girlfriend doesn't want to do it herself, I mean."

"She left quite awhile ago, actually."

"Oh?"

"Yeah."

Something that cautiously resembled a flicker of hope fluttered in her chest. "…Then let's go."


End file.
